Historic Berliner Weisse – Homebrew Recipe

There where some requests on Milk the Funk to create a recipe for a historic Berliner Weisse.

So I did my best to create an historical accurate Version with some minor adjustments to bring it in the modern world.

Original Gravity:

7.3 Plato (1029 SG)

Grain Bill:

70% Wheat Malt

30% Pilsner Malt

Hops:

2-7 IBU Hallertau Mittelfrüh

Yeast:

German Ale / Kölsch (WLP029, Wyeast 1007)

Berliner Weisse Brettanomyces (Escarpment Labs)

Bacteria:

Lactobacillus Brevis (WLP672, OYL-605 etc.)

Mashing:

63°C for 60 minutes

72°C for 20 minutes

78°C mash out

Directions:

For water target roughly 100 ppm Calcium, 50 ppm of Chloride and 100 ppm of Sulfite. Just before mash out draw a thin decoction and boil the hops in it for 15 minutes, add it to the mash while raising the temperature to mash out. After lautering do not boil the wort, just heat the wort to 98°C to pasteurize then cool. Pre-acidify the wort to a pH of 4.5 for foam stability. Ferment at room temperature (18-20°C) for roughly 3 months. Carbonate to 7-9 g/l CO2 (3.5-4.5 volumes), use heavy bottles.

Discussion

This is my idea of the recipe, I will go through every point and the background behind my decision. Let’s start with the grain bill. Historically Berliner Weisse was brewed with different ratios of wheat and barley, sometimes as low as 1:2 sometimes as high as 4:1. For me the sweet spot is at 70% wheat and 30% barley, there is enough mouthfeel and doughiness from the wheat and the lautering is for most homebrew systems manageable. Another point you should consider is using a wheat with a high level of protein, and if possible undermodified. The reason for this decision is the improvement of the foam stability, which is one of the quality signs of a good Berliner Weisse. If you don’t have access to such a malt, you can add 35% torrefied or chitted wheat. The water profile is the current one from Berlin, you could also try using a 2:1 chloride:sulfite ratio for a thicker mouthfeel.

Mashing

For mashing I opted for a „Hochkurz“ mashing scheme (60 minutes at 63°C and 20 minutes at 72°C) which favours fermentability. The reason for that is that I believe that more simple, available sugars lead to a less funky/sour wort. My theory is that in a highly fermentable wort Saccharomyces leaves less fermentables to Brettanomyces and Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and flavour wise Brettanomyces is focuses more on esterase. Another factor is that the beer is finished faster. You can also use a infusion mash at 65°C which a lot of brewers used in the old days.

Hopping

When starting with a culture I would suggest going as low as 2 IBU with the hopping, later when the culture is rolling you can go up to 7 maybe even 10 IBUs in order to balance the acidity. If you are using Pediococcus (more on that later when we talk about bacteria) you can use a bit more than 10 IBUs since it is more hop tollerant. Also you can use a small amount (2 g/l) of dry hopping with Hallertau Mittelfrüh after fermentation in order to improve head retention.

Yeast

In the last 5 years a lot of people isolated Berliner Weisse Brettanomyces strains out of old bottles and even some where kept alive. Thanks to people like Richard Preiss from Escarpment labs we can now use those historic strains and brew with them. In my experience those strains when handled right develop nearly no funky, phenolic aroma. In my opinion the main function for Brettanomyces in Berliner Weisse is its capability to transform lactic and acetic acid to ethyl lactate and ethyl acetate. In order to avoid stressing the Brettanomyces I suggest making a good starter to ensure a high cell count in the mixed culture. When you grow up the mixed culture just let it sit for a few weeks to achieve balance. If you don’t have access to a original Berliner Weisse Strain you could use a Brettanomyces anomala strain like OYL-201 or WLP645. For Saccharomyces I would recommend a clean slightly fruity strain like WLP029 (German Ale/Kölsch).

Bacteria

The main Lactobacillus that was found in Berliner Weisse was Lactobacillus Brevis. Also there where other hop tolerant strains present like L. lindnerii, L. casei, L. coryniformis and L. plantarum but L. Brevis was mostly present. Another aspect of old time Berliner production was the presence of Pediococcus. Sometimes the beers went ropy, when that happened the brewer needed to sit on the beer for a few months in order to get rid of the ropiness. After that it was priced for it’s delicate flavour. I have Pediococcus present in my culture, it will get ropey after 3 weeks and goes away at month 2-3. With Pediococcus in your culture the beer will get more sour than without.

Process

In my opinion not boiling the wort adds some perceivable differences to the finished product. First the color is pretty pale and second there is a grainy doughy flavour that comes through. It is necessary to boil the hops in a decoction for not boiling the wort. Another topic is fermentation time. In the old days they would ferment and know when to bottle in order to achieve the right carbonation level (this is called „Grünschlauchen“ in german). I would advise against that until you really know your culture and can predict when it will stop. Targeting a high carbonation level is also a key to the style, why else would Napoleon call it „champagne of the north“. When bottling and priming be sure to use the method to account for terminal acid shock. My observations was that adding fresh yeast at bottling time suppresses/delays the development of the typical Brett funk a bit.

Flavour

When you where following most of the steps you should end up with a straw coloured beer that has an aroma reminiscent of peaches and apricots. It has a thick rocky white head which persists (the hardest thing to achieve). The mouthfeel is creamy due to the high carbonation, but dries out after you swallow. There is a grainy, dough like aftertaste. It is tart and balanced but not overly sour or puckering. The refreshing qualities of a good Berliner Weisse will leave you longing for the 1 litre goblets they where using in the beginning of the 20th century.

As far as I know there is now control about it. And as far as my info goes people with an intolerance against histamin or other Amines should limit beer consumption anyways. I think Barrel Aged Sours in peticular.

We met this year at both Carnivale Brettanomyes and the BeaverTown Extravaganza. At Carnivale I also joined your historic Gose tasting, which I enjoyed a lot. And very informative!

Warning: long post 🙂

Seeing your recipe inspired me to brew a Berliner Weisse for the summer based on your instructions. There are however a few things that I did different.
I did perform a decoction step, but did not boil any hops in it. Using hops seemed a bit useless to me, as they will inhibit lactobacillus growth and up to 2 IBU won’t add any perceivable hop flavor or bittering either. Doing the single decoction step would probable add a bit more color and maltiness to the beer. After the brew day I was wondering why I even bothered to perform the decoction step. It defeats the purpose of not boiling the wort a bit, since it will probably contribute to less of grainy doughy flavor in the final product.

As for the yeast I made a starter of some old slurry that I kept in the fridge for a few months now. It consists of German Ale (WY1007), Brett Bruxellensis (WLP650) and some Brett that I cultured from a bottle of Goose Island Sofie. I don’t know the ratio’s, but it has produced some enjoyable fruity and slightly funky beers in the past. It seemed a logical choice to use this blend for the Berliner Weisse.

Before pitching the yeast I added one pack of a Lactobacillus blend (Omega OYL-605) to the wort and left it in there for about a day to give the bacteria a head start. According to your discussion this seems to differ from the old procedures, but the last time I pitched this blend along with the yeast it did not produce enough acid for my taste.

I’ve never brewed a Berlines Weisse before and therefore I’m a bit afraid that the final product will contain some DMS because of the large portion of Pilsner malt and not boiling it. Have you ever experienced DMS in our beers and what are your points of view on this subject?

The reasoning behind the hops, my culture got pretty resistant to hops so I am targeting around 10-15. The last berliners I made where too acidic. The target is drinkability for me. If you start with a culture skipping decoction is totally valid and logic.

Now to the dms part: No, I never experienced it. Also I cool quite fast after pasteurizing it. And i would say with 30% the pilsner ammount is not that big.

I really like the idea of developing a mixed culture that i get to know over time. Also it will behave different due to mixing, the components stay the same so I hope i will be able to control acidity and predict final gravity in a certain range. But nothing wrong with trying to get a reproducable result with commercial cultures. That is the other way I would try.

Hope to see you next year again at carnival! Maybe with the finished beer!

If all goes well we’ll be going to next years Carnivale as well. If the beer ends up fine I’ll bring a bottle to swap or share!

It makes sense to get some IBU’s in the beer if your culture is hop tolerant. Especially if the beer mustn’t become too sour in order to keep it from being highly drinkable.

Reading your reply I noticed that I made a dumb mistake. I reversed the ratio’s of the malts and used 70% Pilsner and 30% malted Wheat. Oops… 🙁
Oh well, it will hopefully produce a beer that is still somewhat close to style.

One more question regarding the fermentation. Do you recommend leaving the beer in the primary until it’s ready for packaging or would it be better (read: closer to style) to rack it to a secondary after the primary fermentation is done?
Leaving it in the primary should be fine, since there is Brett in the mix. Not sure what the procedure was back in the old days…

The Pilsner, Wheat ratio is no problem at all. They changed so much over time and with different breweries!
I would recommend leaving the beer till fermentation is done, racking is not necessary.
Traditionally they would have done a pretty quick primary fermentation and filled directly in the bottle.
But they had one advantage over us… They knew their mixed culture really well. How it behaved in summer or winter, how far down it would go, how much pressure the bottles would hold. If the beer was all sold in summer or if it was aged. All this knowledge would help them determine when the beer is finished.

Good to know about the changing of the ratio’s. Well the colour looks about right. It’s still straw coloured.

I sure don’t know my mixed culture very well. I only fermented two totally different beers with it. I will leave it in the primary for at least three months. After that period there shouldn’t be much fermentables left in the beer and it should be safe to bottled it.